poetical license, and was born in
the imaginative brain of the Spanish writers. Had Prescott ever seen
them, he would doubtless have come to the same conclusion. "Hanging"
gardens do not necessarily depend from anything, "floating" islands need
not necessarily float. They really have the appearance of buoyancy
to-day, and hence the figure of speech which has been universally
applied to them. "I have not seen any floating gardens," says R. A.
Wilson, author of "Mexico and its Religion," "nor, on diligent inquiry,
have I been able to find a man, woman, or child that ever has seen them,
nor do I believe that such a thing as a floating garden ever existed at
Mexico." They are now anchored to the bottom fast enough, that is
certain, being separated from each other and the main land by little
narrow canals. The soil of which they are constituted is kept always
moist by natural irrigation, and is wonderfully fertile in producing
flowers, fruits, and mammoth vegetables. Seed-time and harvest are
perennial on these peculiar islands. Men are always ready with a rude
sort of boat, which the most poetic imagination cannot dignify into a
gondola, but which is so called. These floats are about fifteen feet
long, four wide, flat bottomed, with low sides, and have no covering.
The boatmen row, or rather pole, the boats through the little canals,
giving the passengers a view of the low, rank vegetation on the islands,
some of which present a pleasing floral picture, rather curious, but not
very interesting. On Sundays and festal days the middle and lower
classes of the capital come hither in large numbers to amuse themselves
with the tall swings, the merry-go-rounds, and the scowlike boats, to
eat dulces at the booths, and to drink inordinate quantities of pulque
at the many stands at which it is dispensed at popular prices. The
pungent liquor permeates the surrounding atmosphere with its sour and
offensive odor. Here one sees numerous groups busy at that besetting sin
of the Indians, gambling. It is practiced on all occasions and in all
places, the prevailing means being "the wheel of fortune." An itinerant
bearing one of these instruments strapped about his shoulders stops here
and there, soon gathering a crowd of the curious about him. The
lottery-ticket vender drowns all other cries in his noisy search after
customers, reaping a large harvest, especially on Sundays, in this
popular resort. The old stone church of Santa Anita is a crum